Reprise
by golden starfish
Summary: Dean dealing with (some of) the aftermath of the events of 9x09 Holy Terror. S9 spoilers to end of 9x09.


"Really?" Crowley just raises his eyebrows and tilts his head a little to the side.

Dean turns the handle of the demon killing knife around in the palm of his hand.

How long has he known? Since the very first day Sam returned from the hospital?

"So? What do you know?"

"Demons, angels, we all want them. Souls have power."

Dean ignores the clank of chains and shouting as he leaves the room.

* * *

><p>His footsteps echo through the bunker as he crosses to stone floor to the stairs, carrying Kevin's body over his shoulder. The white bed sheet brushes against his cheek, the cooling skin beneath leaching heat from his face and shoulder. He gives a small nauseated shudder because this is <em>Kevin<em>.

The Sam in his head is stuck on an angry and incredulous_, what did you think would happen?_

There's nothing to say in return. It burns cold deep inside his chest because _he knows_. Nothing good. Nothing good ever comes of it.

* * *

><p>The world ended one night at Cold Oak. One stab wound was all it took. His brother lolling forward into his arms, heavy and warm, feeling the wetness of blood begin to slick his hands clasping at Sam's back.<p>

He stayed there, knelt in the mud, clutching Sam for a long time. He distantly felt Bobby's rough hand in his hair and soothing words.

He knelt there in the mud until his skin was cool and Sam's cold.

Back then, in that unheated cabin, there was fog outside in the mornings and an earthy dampness in the air. He remembers the closeness and weight of the silence, inside and outside the cabin. In the Impala on the way to the crossroads.

He remembers it because it's the same silence now, full of _I don't know what to do_, and this time, _what have I done?_

* * *

><p>He watches the pyre until it heaves its last flaming breath and smolders out. There's a chill in the damp winter air, it seeped through his jacket hours ago but he doesn't care much. It's a misty evening, the world shades of dull green and brown, the smell of smoke and burning hanging in the still air.<p>

He shivers as he feels the cool absence of the fire.

Sam's asking him, _what did you think would happen?_

* * *

><p>Sam is knelt in the dirt, head falling limply forward. Dean moves his hands, now slick with blood from Sam's back up to cradle Sam's face, feeling it grow heavier with every fading breath.<p>

Dean leans in and gently kisses Sam's forehead. He rests his face in Sam's hair, smells the mud and blood matting it but mostly smells home.

The mist rolls across the fields, weaving through the fencing and trees.

The rising sun is weak on his back, the water on the sodden ground seeping up through his jeans, making them heavy.

Sam died when it was still dark; distantly he knows that, like he knows this is just a dream and he knows that dawn came and went before Bobby could get him to move.

* * *

><p>He's dreaming he's sat on the stoop of a house they'd spent six months in back in '97. He remembers playing out on the lawn and in the woods beyond; in October Sam broke his arm falling out of a tree in the woods after slipping on some damp moss.<p>

Now it's a late summer morning, a chill of autumn in the air and the first splash of color growing across the forest beyond. A beer appears in front of him, he glances up. Sam's standing over him in the white and pale blue striped shirt from Cold Oak, sleeves rolled up, and a smile playing on his lips. The weak golden sunlight makes the condensation inside of the windows behind him twinkle like stars.

The wooden steps creak as Sam sits down next to him, eyes watching Dean.

"You ever think about what it all means? All this?"

Dean snorts.

"You ever think that maybe it is okay? To let go."

Dean quirks a crooked smile in lieu of an answer.

"Give it time, Dean," dream Sam says with a grim certainty before taking another swig of his beer.

Dean does the same and looks back out across the lawn. Beneath a pale blue sky, the morning mist is rolling gently through the trees in the valley bottom.

* * *

><p>He awakes abruptly into a sea of black. In the first deep blue of dawn he can momentarily make out the back of the Impala's bench seat. For a moment he just smells the lingering, acrid taint of smoke and death before it hits him – <em>Kevin <em>– and then he remembers the pyre burning itself out shortly before dusk.

The morning has that same deathly quiet as after Cold Oak, the same heavy dampness in the air. He drives through drifting patchy mist in the pale morning light.

The Sam in his head asks again:

_What did you think would happen? What have you done?_

There's a choking, aching pain inside that answers:

Nothing good, Sam. Nothing good.


End file.
